Bonding
by FieryBrunette
Summary: With Hermione at work, and nothing to himself but an empty house and a rather hostile cat, Ron Weasley really has nothing better to do than let the 'animal' magnetism kick in. R/Hr. Please read and review!


**Author's Note: This is my first R/Hr fic, and my first general HP fic in at least six months, so go easy on me. Post DH, and yes, it is canon. No overly dramatic fluff here...well...maybe. :)**

**Read and review!**

**P.S. - This is part of the PULL project (created by Bookaholic711)!**

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Though not the most observational person in the world, Ron Weasley has had his moments of keen observation.

Like now, as he paced back in forth in the living room, waiting for his girlfriend to get home.

Observation #1: When someone says, 'I'll be home by ten' it never really means 'I'll be home by ten'. Really, the given time of ten is all but a notation of when the speaker will _not_ be there by.

Especially when the speaker is a workaholic like Hermione Granger. She'd been going through a load of work this week that had her at the office until early hours. And despite the fact that she specifically told Ron she'd be back by ten, he had soon realized that it was not true. This realization came up as ten o clock became eleven, and eleven became twelve, and so on.

Observation #2: Time can go by ridiculously slowly, especially when one least wants it too.

It had seemed ages since Ron had set out the dinner he'd pulled together himself (Chinese takeout from the muggle village down the road). He'd spent the last two hours or so fidgeting about, reheating the Chinese takeout when it started to get cold, eating most of the Chinese takeout, pacing the floor, and dealing with the baleful glares from Crookshanks.

Which lead him to Observation #3:

When sitting all alone in an empty house when waiting for your girlfriend to come home, one might just start to imagine that said girlfriend's cat is actually getting along with you.

This was probably the most shocking observation, seeing as Crookshanks (in all of his orange furry glory) had continued to hate Ron over the years. You'd think the unveiling of a former-pet-also-murderous-traitor would have created a tie of some sorts between Ron and the cat, but it certainly had not changed it.

Ron stopped his pacing and glanced at the rocking chair, where Crookshanks sat, blinking slowly at Ron, his tail twitching slightly.

Hermione had all but begged to let Crookshanks move in with them too. Though it wasn't as though Ron had much of a say in the first place, because Hermione would have probably ignored his protests anyways and carried the cat in herself. But Ron figured it couldn't hurt.

And he couldn't have been further than the truth.

"Consider this your chance to finally get around to that bonding." Hermione had said brightly, beaming as Crookshanks sniffed around the house, occasionally hissing at the coffee table or the fireplace.

Ron hadn't replied. Ron hadn't uttered the nasty comment about how he'd rather go and have tea with Malfoy then try and bond with that fur ball. He'd learned a good deal of time ago that Hermione was oddly motherly towards that monster, even with the proof that it was a right rabid _git._

So, he'd nodded, and said that with all the time she would be spending at work due to her promotion, he was sure to have some quality bonding time with the cat.

_Yeah, _Ron thought viciously, eyeing the cat as it eyes him right back, _like that'll happen._

And for a while, it hadn't. He'd feed Crookshanks and change his cat box, but the so called 'bonding' never happened. It seemed to be a lack of effort on both their behalves. There was no denying that in a household of three, everyone preferred Hermione. Crookshanks often curled up on her lap on Sunday afternoon's, and Ron always gave Hermione his goodbye kiss each morning.

But for the last week, while Hermione had been popping in and out of the house to occasionally grab a change of clothes, or some coffee, the house had grown eerily empty. Sure, Ron went to work same as usual, but when he got home, there really was nothing to do other than flop on the couch and read the Prophet until Hermione got home. Crookshanks slept, ate, or just yowled at the door for Hermione to come home.

It had started small, Crookshanks watching Ron eat his cereal every morning, or Ron absentmindedly patting the cat on the head as he turned the page of the Prophet. Then Crookshanks started sleeping in the same spot Hermione's head usually took in their bed, curled up and purring softly as the night rolled on. Ron stopped ignoring the cat's yowling at late hours, and instead tried to placate it with catnip or odd bits of magic that distracted it.

It was bad enough that Ron was having to live with this thing, but getting along with it seemed a bit too much. It just went to show how utterly _barmy_ he was going without Hermione's logical mind about. It just went to show how lack of Hermione's affection made Crookshanks actually able to reach out to other people without trying to scratch a great deal of their face off.

And now, just when Ron thought she'd actually come home on time, and be able to sleep at home tonight, she was late. And he was stuck in a small house. With a deranged, needy cat.

A cat that, at that very moment, seemed to find pacing along with Ron the perfect activity to occupy his waiting for Hermione.

"Oi," Ron grunted, ceasing his pacing and glaring down at the cat, "Go on, you. Go kill a dove or squirrel. Go on."

The cat blinked up at him, looking nonplussed. Like it was saying, "Bite me, arse-hole."

Merlin, he really _was _going barmy.

Ron sat huffily down on the couch, gritting his teeth as Crookshanks jumped on the couch right after him, now regarding curiously as if to say, "Now what?"

Ron was never one to imagine animals talking to him. But he'd seen enough in his days to know when a cat is having a sort of nonverbal conversation with you.

He looked at Crookshanks. Crookshanks looked at him. They both looked at the door, where the porch light shined wearily; as if already aware no one would be coming by to turn it off any time soon.

"Looks like we'll be waiting up again, mate." Ron muttered sleepily, stretching across the couch. Crookshanks regarded him disdainfully before promptly climbing up onto Ron's lap and curling up into a ball on Ron's stomach.

Ron glanced at the cat warily, seeming to be unsure whether it was secretly planning to attack him or not. Usually Crookshanks spent his evenings curled up in other places, by the fire place, on the kitchen counter by the window sill, on Hermione's lap.

With a sigh, Ron slowly placed his hand on Crookshanks orange fur. "Yeah, I miss her too."

And so they waited.

Hermione walked into the living room, tip toeing so as to not make a sound. She was almost sure that Ron went up to bed hours ago. Exhaustion caused her to blink rapidly and stifle yawn after yawn as she set her things down on the table and head over to the couch to plop down.

When she saw Ron and Crookshanks curled up, her fatigue was broken through like taking a breath of fresh air, a smile twitching at the corners of her lips. Ron was covering the entire couch with all his gangly length, mouth hanging open, and not appearing to be waking any time soon.

The more delightful thing noticed, however, was the sight of her cat, curled up on Ron's stomach, sleeping as well. Hermione suppressed a laugh at the thought of these two having loathed each other.

"And here I thought you had just moved into your office space," came the sarcastic voice from the couch.

Hermione jumped, having not realized that Ron was actually awake, his eyes contentedly resting on her as a small teasing smile began to appear on his face. It was hard to suppress how happy he was to see her, and know that she was not headed straight out the door in just a mere matter of minutes.

"Oh, I tried," she said coolly, "But something about living expenses made the contract of agreement not go through."

Ron chuckled slightly, the shaking movement of his stomach waking a rather delighted Crookshanks, who meowed as soon as he took sight of Hermione, all but leaping into her arms.

"And what exactly were the two of you up to, pray tell?" She asked, scratching behind Crookshanks' ears and grinning when he began purring elatedly.

"Male bonding." Ron replied through a yawn, stretching and wincing as his joints cracked. He ruffled his hair slightly and blinked sleepily, "Crookshanks needed consoling; he was awfully upset about you being gone all week."

"Oh, so just Crookshanks missed me?" Hermione tutted with mock concern.

"Yeah, well," Ron turned the slightest shade of pink, "I might have missed you too. Just a tad."

"Just a tad?"

"That's about right, yes."

As if on cue, Crookshanks stood and jumped onto the carpet, leaving Hermione room to walk over to Ron, all the while trying to keep from throwing herself at him.

It didn't work out as well as she thought.

"I…ooof! Hermione!" It was hard to properly state his surprise as Ron was ambushed with a tackling hug involving bushy brown hair and a near strangling grip.

"Oh, shut up, Ronald." She snapped, laughing at the same time.

When she kissed him, Ron was slightly aware of how that sick queasy feeling or missing her that had resided in his stomach for the past seven days was gone, and replaced with a warm fuzzy feeling that made him want to walk outside and shout 'YES!' to the whole of his quite asleep neighborhood. Of course, this is something he would never openly admit to Hermione, but feeling it all the same seemed to be enough.

And though Ron was never one for romantics (and certainly never one for the sort of clichés that came with them), he couldn't help feeling that he could just go on for the rest of the night doing this. Of course, maybe that was just the male hormones speaking for themselves. Either or, he didn't really care.

"And you say you only missed me a little?" Hermione murmured some time later, smirking against his lips.

Ron flushed all the way down to his toes and looked down. "Well, maybe more than that."

Crookshanks meowed again, shoving his weight between the two of him, seemingly having enough of Ron-and-Hermione-time and ready to resume Crookshanks-and-Hermione-time.

"Lousy git." Ron muttered fondly, scratching Crookshanks.

Hermione shook her head in amazement. Ron looked up and said indignantly, "What?"

"Nothing." She laughed. "Just wondering what exactly happened to make the animal magnetism kick in between the two of you."

"You know," said Ron, promptly shoving Crookshanks off their laps and pulling Hermione's face back down to his (ignoring her squawk of protest), "I really haven't the foggiest idea."

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**A/N: Once again, please let me know what you think! REVIEW!**


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